


let your heart be light

by HereComeDatBoi



Series: you're the one that's making me strong [26]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adashi Gift Exchange 2019, Christmas Fluff, M/M, Married Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:51:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21953056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereComeDatBoi/pseuds/HereComeDatBoi
Summary: “You had the cutest dimples back when we were in school. I’m pretty sure I could match all of hers to the ones in your old photos.”“You used to kiss them all one by one and say you were just charting constellations, remember?”“They were devastatingly handsome, Takashi. Don’t blame me for thinking your dimples were equally as important as my astronomy homework.”---In which Adam and Shiro celebrate the holidays with memories, cake, a tiny new addition, and each other.
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: you're the one that's making me strong [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1261916
Comments: 14
Kudos: 20





	let your heart be light

**Author's Note:**

> for larry-the-shivering-chipmunk on Tumblr! <3

Christmas at the Shirogane household was never a major event before Keith came along.

Neither Shiro nor Adam celebrated it much when they were children, mostly because Adam grew up in a tiny farming village that had no commercial interest in anything but fish and produce, and because Shiro’s grandparents never had the heart for anything but a dinner of some of his favorite foods on Christmas; his mother had been in charge of decorations and holiday planning before she moved to Japan to marry his father, and after her death her grieving parents―who had, in accordance with their daughter’s wishes, taken her only son from his paternal relatives and brought him up in their North Florida townhouse―usually refused to acknowledge the occasion at all. 

“You understand why, don’t you, Taka-kun?” his grandfather asked, trying to soothe the pout off Shiro’s face when all he found in his stocking was a model plane kit and an express package of summer yukata and peach candy from his aunt. “We would love to do the fancy decorations, and the lights, and the tree...but your kaa-san used to do them when she was here, and now that she’s not I don’t think me and baa-chan can take it.”

“_I _can do them, Jiji,” protested Shiro, stretching up his chubby arms in a wordless plea to be carried. “I can twist the wreaths, and pop the corn, and―”

_ “No, _Takashi. It would break your baa-chan’s heart with missing Himeko, and I know you don’t want her to feel even worse.”

And that, as the six-year-old Shiro soon learned, was that. Eiji and Natsuko Shirogane almost forgot the word _ no _completely when they adopted their orphaned grandson, and whenever they did use it he quickly realized that there was no use trying to change their minds. 

As a result, Shiro’s next real Christmas took place thirteen years later. Adam (his bright, brave-hearted Adam, who embraced parenthood so thoroughly that following his example was easier than breathing sometimes) had managed to figure out that the late Kevin Kogane had been loosely Presbyterian; Keith was not religious himself, but he liked the concept of the thing as a way to remember his father, so all three of them spent December twenty-third hanging up colored lights and cutting long rows of Christmas cookies out of homemade gingerbread dough. 

“You can save five or six to hang on the tree,” Adam reminded them, indicating the little plastic pine standing in the far corner of the living room. “We’ll just bake those an extra quarter-hour so they harden up, and then you can decorate them.”

“Or we could just eat them,” suggested Keith, who had been stealing bits of dough all night and eating them when Adam’s back was turned. “Right?”

“You wouldn’t need to if you hadn’t snatched five cookie’s worth of dough already,” said Shiro, laughing as Keith’s small face turned sour faster than Adam could push him out of the kitchen. “Adam, sweetheart, we’d better have dinner, or no one’s going to get to eat the gingerbread later.”

But Keith, who was already twelve years old by then and didn’t much like to be “fussed over”, resisted most of the more elaborate holiday traditions Adam and Shiro would have liked to try, so they never got the chance until the second year after the war―which was, on the grand scale of things, one of the most eventful years of Shiro’s life. 

Keith had moved out, as they both expected he would. He and Lance tied the knot six days after the war ended, and then promptly adopted a fluffy Galra baby with ears that stuck up like a bat’s, throwing themselves headlong into fatherhood without pausing to consider the fact that they were only twenty and twenty-three―which made sense, Shiro thought, considering the fact that he and Adam had done the same thing. 

The Kogane family’s Christmases were spent at the Hernandez-McClain ranch now, though Keith usually came by to visit his brother and brother-in-law either the week before it or the week immediately after. But this particular year they expected no visitors, since the paladins were away on a diplomacy tour―which was just as well, because Adam and Shiro had their hands full with their six-week-old daughter, Sonia. 

“It’s okay if the costume doesn’t fit her, ‘Kashi,” Adam soothed, glancing up from the cake he was slicing to find his husband trying to tuck Sonia’s red knitted dress closer around her tiny body. “Your grandmother knows she’s small for six weeks, she’s not going to get upset that she doesn’t fill it out all the way.”

“But it’s her _ first _Christmas, so her pictures have to be perfect,” Shiro said for the fifth time that evening, throwing up his hands in despair as the baby’s small hands vanished back into her sleeves. “Because I bet we’ll be too tired to do anything for the next one, since she’ll probably be walking by then. Soniye, just stay still for a second so I can take a picture to send to your baa-chan, okay? I really don’t want to use the pins, and you’ve been wiggling since I got you dressed.”

Sonia only cooed at him and kicked her feet rapturously, sending her fur-trimmed socks flying into the air and into her father’s face. The pretty handmade outfit from Shiro’s grandmother fascinated her to no end, and no one had managed to get her to keep the hat and shoes on; she was only happy when she could chew on the soft glittering yarn, which Natsuko had chosen over fifty years ago to make a scarf for Shiro’s late mother and finally used up that very winter for Sonia’s Christmas ensemble.

“I _ know _ you know what I want you to do, moonbeam,” he said, tickling the soles of her tiny pink feet. “Just keep your socks on, _ please _. Only for a minute, and then you’ll never have to wear any of this again.”

Adam passed him a slice of shortcake and sat down beside him, pulling the baby into his arms and kissing her little face until she squealed. 

“You like the sparkly yarn, huh?” he murmured, cradling her close to his chest and laughing as her eyes started to flicker shut. “Just like when you wouldn’t stop pulling your Auntie Colleen’s necklace. You can’t ruin your hat, though, so you can chew it all you want―especially since your oba-chan made it just for you.”

“_ How _ did you do that?” said Shiro incredulously, watching her curl into Adam’s blue sweater and drift off to sleep in three seconds flat. “I’ve been trying to get her to sleep for almost half an hour.”

“Your voice excites her, moonlight,” smiled his husband. “It always has, ever since she was in the pod, but mine calms her down. Do you think you can get that picture now?”

Shiro tied the small round hat back onto her head and retrieved her socks, putting them gently onto one small foot and then the other before procuring two feet of wide green ribbon from the bedroom. 

“Almost,” he announced, wrapping the ribbon around their daughter’s chest and tying it into a loose bow over her stomach. “There, now she’s ready.”

“She looks like a present,” giggled Adam, voice growing softer still as Shiro’s metal arm floated up with the camera to get a better angle. “Oh, Takashi, she’s _ perfect. _I―I still can’t believe she’s real sometimes, you know? Or that she’s ours, if I can get my head around the fact that she’s really here.”

“She _ is _ours,” Shiro told him. “Look, sunshine. There’s your nose, and your lips, and your chin―and my eyebrows, and my hair, and my dimples. She’s half of me and half of you, and literally everyone can see it.”

“They’re definitely your dimples,” Adam mused, taking in a delighted breath as they popped out on either side of Sonia’s small red mouth. “You had the cutest dimples back when we were in school. I’m pretty sure I could match all of hers to the ones in your old photos.”

“You used to kiss them all one by one and say you were just charting constellations, remember?”

“They were devastatingly handsome, Takashi. Don’t blame me for thinking your dimples were equally as important as my astronomy homework.”

“Well, I got kisses out of it, so I don’t think I can.”

“And now Sonia’s got them,” whispered Adam, leaning back against Shiro’s chest and bundling the baby up in her favorite blanket. “Did you ever think we would get here, _ janu _? When you were sick, or during the war, or after―it felt like the end was already coming, somehow. Like there was no use in looking forward, because we might not have even another week, or another day―and now here we are, with _ soniye, _and everything behind us. It just doesn’t seem real.”

“We got a second chance,” Shiro whispered back, biting his lip as the baby’s minute fingers curled around his thumb. “A miracle, maybe, but we did. And I’m never going to let any of it touch either of you again, no matter what I have to do to keep you safe. You’re mine, both of you, and I’d walk straight to hell and back to protect you.”

“I know.” Adam kissed his forehead and then the tuft of white hair just above, exhaling softly into the air between them until Shiro leaned down and kissed him on the mouth. “I know, sweetheart.”

They sat on the floor for another hour, watching in wonder as Sonia’s little face went through the same series of expressions it always did when she was asleep: furrowed and drawn as if she were deep in thought, and then utterly relaxed with a small sweet smile as if she had finally found a dream she liked. She huddled closer to Adam’s chest as she slept, searching for the comforting warmth of his skin through his thick sweater, and at last they got up and dressed her in a pair of duck-patterned pajamas Lance had sent along for _ his _gift before laying her down in the middle of their bed.

“I just realized we didn’t do presents this year,” yawned Shiro, climbing in beside her. “Is there anything you wanted, honey? I can drive down to the city tomorrow.”

“There’s nothing that can top the lifetime’s worth of presents I gave _ you _ this year _, _ so quit while you’re ahead,” Adam snickered, running a tender hand through Sonia’s long black hair. “I’ve got you, _ janaana, _and I’ll never want anything else for as long as I live.”

“I know that,” Shiro said sleepily, settling one hand on Adam’s cheek and the other over Sonia’s legs. “I’ve never wanted anything more than I want to keep what I have, sweetheart. And that’s never going to change.”


End file.
